CRITIC'S CHOICE/Pop CD's; Love Can Get Complicated (Ouch!)

By JON PARELES

Published: October 7, 1997

As the 20th century ends, romance and technology have grown inseparable. Connections are made (and broken) by E-mail and answering machine; more trysts are illuminated by video screens than by candlelight. Naturally, the modern love song has adapted to its new circumstances. On the albums reviewed below, samples of old songs drift by like tenacious memories, while stray noises and allusions appear like random souvenirs from cyberspace. Meanwhile, singers still flirt and pine for human contact.

Janet Jackson

Once Janet Jackson sang ''Let's wait a while'' to a prospective lover; now, her songs race directly to the bedroom. ''The Velvet Rope'' (Virgin Records America) is her most daring, elaborate and accomplished album. ''Follow the passion that's within you,'' she sings in the title song, and that dictum leads her to sing about unbridled lust (''My Need''), bondage (''Rope Burn'') and gay and bisexual pairings (''Free Xone''). She turns Rod Stewart's ''Tonight's the Night'' into a woman-to-woman come-on and, at the end, a threesome.

Ms. Jackson has clearly calculated the titillation factor, as Madonna once did. But her Madonna-like message, that self-realization means ending repression, seems heartfelt, underlined by insipid sound bites of psychobabble. More important, Ms. Jackson backs her prescription with ambitious music.

She and her longtime collaborators, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, aren't content with simple catchiness. Songs transform themselves as they go, leaping from sharply etched cross-rhythms to lush choruses, using samples for both texture and historic context. The album hopscotches through soul and rhythm-and-blues: Curtis Mayfield and the Supremes, James Brown and Chic, P-Funk and A Tribe Called Quest, Prince and plenty of Michael Jackson.

Ms. Jackson and her brain trust also build songs on a line from Joni Mitchell, on a melody from Mike Oldfield's ''Tubular Bells'' and, in ''Empty'' (about falling in love via Internet chat), on what sounds like a gamelan-inspired snippet of Steve Reich. There's hardly a spontaneous moment, but the quick-change textures and sly details keep the music frisky.

Ms. Jackson deploys her small voice shrewdly: for a creamy Diana Ross homage in ''Together,'' a jaded growl in ''You,'' a girlish breathiness in ''Go Deep,'' a depressive sobriety in ''Got 'Til It's Gone,'' a phone-sex moan in ''Rope Burn.''

While soft-porn songs like ''Rope Burn,'' ''Tonight's the Night'' and ''Anything'' are slick and lubricious, Ms. Jackson doesn't just want to be a sex object. The album's most startling song, ''What About,'' confronts domestic abuse. It starts out with the acoustic guitar, ocean sounds and birdcalls of a Babyface-style romantic ballad, as a man proposes to her. But instead of happily-ever-after burblings, it suddenly shifts to fierce, choppy rock, similar to Michael Jackson's angriest songs, as the singer's accusations pour out: ''What about the times you hit my face?/ What about the times you kept on when I said 'No more please'?'' Meticulous as the album is, Ms. Jackson clearly has no intention of playing it safe.

Portishead

On its debut album in 1994, Portishead unveiled a dank, moody style, full of staticky drum samples, crescendos from forgotten film soundtracks and glum musings on love. The music was bitter and inconsolable, but it was also smooth and smoky enough to end up on the sound systems of boutiques everywhere: a 1990's Sade. With its second album, ''Portishead'' (Go! Discs/London), the group won't let that happen again. The new songs are still slow and murky, torch songs burning in a deep mist, and Beth Gibbons still sings about uncertain love. But now, Portishead has put claws on its sound; guitars and keyboards turn distorted and synthesizer tones nag and zap. Ms. Gibbons's delivery is sometimes too mannered; her Billie Holiday imitation is ill-advised. But she brings an eerie, witchy cackle to some songs and a tremulous vulnerability to others. Portishead's music won't stay in the background this time, but it's still the essence of unmoored melancholy.

Boyz II Men

Boyz II Men bank on their image as an old-fashioned vocal group: wearing matching outfits, singing sweet promises and able to make music with blended voices alone. But on their third album, ''Evolution'' (Motown), they're trying to be less wimpy. One song admits cheating; another denies an ex-girlfriend a second chance. And alongside the finger snaps, doo-wop harmonies and beseeching voices, Boyz II Men now venture into electronic soundscapes with various producers' help. Three songs produced by the ubiquitous Sean (Puffy) Combs set samples looping continuously behind the four Boyz' voices as the group tries awkwardly to sound lascivious; Keith Crouch gives the group stripped-down, singsong come-ons. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis multiply the Boyz's voices above suavely synthetic backup tracks. Meanwhile the group hedges its bets with ballads produced by Babyface, including a song about loving mom. In the end, ''Evolution'' is nearly as unctuous as the group's previous multimillion-sellers.